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"What makes the cornfield smile [...] Such are my themes." Part history, part agricultural guide, part celebration of human life,
The Georgics of Virgil are a landmark work of literature from Rome's most vital poet. Following the tradition of didactic poetry, Virgil meditates on agriculture, animal husbandry, and beekeeping in order to illuminate humanity's search for order in the universe.
About the author
Virgil (70 BC-19 BC) was a Roman poet. He was born near Mantua in northern Italy. Educated in rhetoric, medicine, astronomy, and philosophy, Virgil moved to Rome where he was known as a particularly shy member of Catullus' literary circle. Suffering from poor health for most of his life, Virgil began his career as a poet while studying Epicureanism in Naples. Around 38 BC, he published the
Eclogues, a series of pastoral poems in the style of Hellenistic poet Theocritus. In 29 BC, Virgil published his next work, the
Georgics, a long didactic poem on farming in the tradition of Hesiod's
Works and Days. In the last decade of his life, Virgil worked on his masterpiece the
Aeneid, an epic poem commissioned by Emperor Augustus. Expanding upon the story of the Trojan War as explored in Homer's
Iliad and
Odyssey, the
Aeneid follows the hero Aeneas from the destruction of Troy to the discovery of the region that would later become Rome. Posthumously considered Rome's national poet, Virgil's reputation has grown through the centuries-in large part for his formative influence on Dante's
Divine Comedy-to secure his position as a foundational figure for all of Western literature.
